Sounders forward Chad Barrett honored as MLS player of the week

Given a chance to contribute last weekend, Seattle Sounders FC forward Chad Barrett came through with the only two goals at Vancouver and was honored Tuesday as Major League Soccer’s player of the week.

That’s a rapid change of fortune for the veteran making only his second start of the season.

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” Barrett said. “You haven’t done anything all year, and then all of a sudden you have a good week, doing interviews, and pretty much back to what I was circa 2011. It feels good. My main objective was to come in and help the team and fill a void that (Obafemi Martins) left. Really nice to get these rewards and stuff like that, but I don’t want it to get into my head. We’ve got another game coming up this week, and I want to be in the starting lineup again.”

That seems likely, as Seattle coach Sigi Schmid said Martins isn’t expected to sufficiently recover from his leg injury by Saturday, when Sporting Kansas City visits CenturyLink Field.

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“He’s in the gym and working, but can’t get on the field yet,” Schmid said. “… An injury, you have to deal with it as it is, and you don’t want to rush anybody until they’re healthy. Obviously, Barrett doing well makes it easier.”

S2, ROUND 2

The Sounders 2 USL team will make its U.S. Open Cup debut at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday against the Kitsap Pumas at Starfire Sports Stadium in Tukwila.

The Pumas advanced to the second round with a 5-2 win over FC Tacoma 253 last week.

Even on the eve of the game, the S2 roster remained a mystery. Last week, coach Ezra Hendrickson had said he expects to use all players signed to S2 contracts, as well as some Sounders Academy players and perhaps a couple of players from the MLS roster.

However, Schmid said the first team wants to loan players cautiously, because once they play for S2 in the Open Cup, they cannot return to the first team once it joins the tournament in the fourth round.

“We’ve had good success in the Open Cup, and a lot of times in the early rounds we’ve played different people,” Schmid said. “So we definitely don’t want to get ourselves into a position where we’re (tying up) a lot of players. (Once) you’re going into June, July and now you’ve got guys going for Gold Cup and you’re missing guys for internationals, or you’re going into a heavy part of your schedule. … So probably less (first-team Sounders) will play for S2 than normally play for S2.”